Logotopia

Logotopia: The library in architecture, art and the imagination

Logotopia is from the ancient Greek logos, meaning "word" and topos, meaning "place."

Design at Riverside, Cambridge Galleries is launching a new exhibit: Logotopia, curated by Sascha Hastings, in celebration of the new book.

Architects, writers and artists explore the library as a concept and a built form through four distinct categories - the Universal Library, the National Library, the Public Library, the Private Library - and take a peek into the future of new technologies and the librarian as a cyber avatar.

Opening on Tuesday, February 19th @ 6:30pm, remarks @ 7pm.

What's cooler than bein' cool?

Ice Cold!

Not relevant Blog content, but I couldn't resist:

A surfer catches a wave near Bluffer's Park in Toronto on Jan 30.

Downtown "re-growth" gets a new meaning

Kathy Renwald, the Spectator's gardening columnist, has a bold new idea for the previously discussed Lister Block in downtown Hamilton and calls on you to make it happen:

"In the Lister Block, Hamilton's crumbling landmark, you can be sure plants are growing from seeds carried in the windows by birds, or maple keys on the roof that have germinated and rooted in the accumulated dirt of abandonment.

If the warring factions fail to agree on a rescue plan, the Lister Block should become the world's biggest garden folly. Take the roof off and let a garden grow. Now there's a tourist attraction of world-class proportion.

Follies, defined by Wikipedia as fanciful, extravagant examples of artistic expression, are found the world over. The Chanticleer Garden in Pennsylvania has a wondrous one in the foundation of an old estate. Hamilton has a mini one on Aberdeen Avenue.

Isn't it time for bold thinking? Imagine the Lister Block as a fantastic garden, the Harris Inlet preserved, and Hamilton becomes a city of rescued gardens instead of the city "it's good to get sick in," as a citizen recently declared in this paper.

It's possible the Lister will sit rotting for a few more years so there is time to issue a challenge to creative thinkers. Ask the students at Guelph School of Landscape Architecture and the architecture students at the University of Waterloo to turn the Lister into a wonderful garden.

Ask them to make room for a music garden where students from Mohawk College could play. Display their ideas and drawings in the art galleries on James Street North.

Two years ago, U.K. artist Mary Wardle had a show at the Print Studio on James Street North based on the gardens she found in abandoned textile mills in Manchester. Her work evoked Hamilton. Imagine a display like that in the new Lister Garden Gallery.

The fun police are reading this and saying "what a stupid idea." But ask an architect and they will say anything can be built."

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours"

When is a wall more than just a wall? When it gets torn down.

New and Improved!

Thanks to your suggestions and a side of WEEF funding, the Library's Conference Room is better than ever!

All four walls are now covered with tack boards and white boards, which provide an ideal backdrop for our new AV equipment. The room is now furnished with a DVD/VHS player, a digital projector and speakers to fulfill all your group work-critiquing-powerpointing-movie watching needs.

Just come to the front desk to book some time in our newly multi-purposed room.

White House Redux

White House Redux

"What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today? On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America, Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenge you to design a new residence for the world's most powerful individual. The best ideas, designs, descriptions, images, and videos will be selected by some of the world's most distinguished designers and critics and featured in a month-long exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in July 2008. All three winners will be flown to New York to collect their prizes at the opening party. Register now and send us your ideas for the Presidential Palace of the future!"

You know where to look, but do you know how to find?

18-30 year-olds use libraries more than any other demographic. It's probably also safe to say they are by far the most computer literate. But Computer Literacy doesn't mean Information Literacy.

Earth is getting hotter...

...but this is really cool.

Our Library, your third place

The internet age has officially failed to crush the brick and mortar library, which has evolved from being a repository of books to a public gathering place.

iSpy

Their paper-thin laptop is pretty yummy...but also unveiled today is a new feature on Apple's iPhone than can pinpoint your location on web-based maps.

Check this out.

Cool? Definitely. Creepy? A bit. Does it make me want one even more? Yes, yes it does.

New books... on photography

The Lost Vanguard: Russian Modernist Architecture, 1922-1932

NA 1188 .P37 2007

Renowned architectural photographer, Richard Pare, spent more than a decade documenting the work of modernist architects in the Soviet Union during the years following the 1917 revolution and subsequent civil war. In little more than ten years, some of the most radical buildings of the twentieth century were completed by a small group of architects who developed a new architectural language in support of new social goals of communal life. Rarely published and virtually inaccessible until the collapse of the Soviet regime, these important buildings have remained unknown and unappreciated until now.

The Nature of Photographs

TR 179 .S56 2007

At the age of 23, Stephen Shore became the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In The Nature of Photographs, he explores ways of understanding and looking at all types of photographs – from iconic images to found pictures, negatives to digital files. Based on Shore’s many years of teaching photography at Bard College, this book serves as an indispensable tool for students, teachers, and everyone who wants to take better pictures or learn to look at them in a more informed way.

Shanghai: A Century of Change in Photographs, 1843-1949

DS 796 .S243P36x 2000

In 1843, the great city of Shanghai was opened up as a treaty port. Like Hong Kong, that other great port on the China coast, the Shanghai portrayed in these pages represented the first door opened into China by British mercantile interests and power. A door is a meeting point, a place of encounter--in this case all kinds of encounter, between peoples and cultures, between stages of civilization, between ways of thought and ways of life. During the hundred-odd years spanned by the photographs in this book, Shanghai was an arena for encounters more varied and vivid than those experienced by any other city in the Far East.

Are all architectural landmarks worth saving?

Hamilton's Lister Block, Canada's first indoor shopping mall, is a mess. Occupying prime real estate downtown, the building - with its towering facade and marble floors - has been home only to pigeons for decades.

After countless deals to renovate it have fallen through, the historic building is now caught in a limbo between a provincial government that won't let it be demolished, a municipal government that can't afford to lease the property, and an owner who refuses to sell.

Everyone is watching: governments, communities and developers. What do you think should happen to the Lister Block?

Facebook

Musagetes is now on Facebook! Become a fan! Do it! Now!

New DVDs

Look for Blood Diamond and The Departed to be added to our film collection later this week!!!

See our Rare Books... on Pompeii

Next time you're walking down the hall or in the library, take a look at our colourful new display high lighting some of our Rare Book materials that explore Pompeii.

While our rare books are kept under lock and key, they are for everyone to use, and can add depth and richness to your thesis or next project.

All rare books are catalogued in TRELLIS along with the rest of our collection... if you see something you want to take a look at, just ask at the desk!

Welcome Linda!

We finally found a replacement for Jason!

Linda Finn started with us just before Christmas, and will now be fulfilling all your ILL, reserve and fines-clerking needs. She has years of experience working with Cambridge Public Library so I'm sure she call handle you all!

Welcome Linda!